


Little Tyrants

by Dog_Bearing_Gifts



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: AU, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bullying, Cycle of Abuse, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Five returns as a kid, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Inspired By Tumblr, M/M, Other, Retaliation, Vanya keeps her powers, but that doesn't fix things, maybe even more so than canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2020-09-30 11:10:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20446187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dog_Bearing_Gifts/pseuds/Dog_Bearing_Gifts
Summary: When Vanya was four, Reginald Hargreeves visited her cell. But not to take her powers away. Just to let her know he could. Just to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that her powers were a privilege he could rescind should she ever choose not to fall in line.Years later, the old man is dead—and the last sibling Vanya wants to see has reappeared in the Academy courtyard.





	1. Prologue: Reclusion

**Author's Note:**

> A while back, I separately received two different asks: one about what I thought might have happened had Reginald let Vanya keep her powers, and one on what I thought might happen if Five returned as a traumatized 13-year-old instead of a 58-year-old man who looked 13. After a while, I wound up putting them together and liked the result, and now I’m turning them into a full-blown AU. Thank you to everyone who sent me asks about the idea, helping me develop it into more of a story and less of a nebulous concept.

Number Seven was never alone for too long. 

Sometimes—most of the time—she was by herself for periods that stretched out longer than time ought to. Minutes moved slower, hours never ended. Grey walls grew larger, closer, tighter and tighter—and then, just when she was certain she had minutes before they’d crush her flat, the lock would whirr and the door would clank open and the walls would snap back to their original shape. It always happened, sooner or later. The walls were never allowed to get too close.

But she’d never been thirsty for so long before.

There was no clock in that room, or any other decoration to break the monotony of those walls; but when she was hungry, Grace or Pogo would come in with food, Dad trailing behind and watching. When she was thirsty, there would be water or juice. Sometimes she had to wait, but it was always there when she needed it.

Number Seven bit her lip and knitted her fingers together. Sometimes that provided her a moment or two of amusement, but it usually just reminded her of how little there was to do. Today, it reminded her of nothing but water. A glass of it. A pitcher of it. If Grace set her before a bathtub, she knew she could guzzle it all down. The thought only made her tongue feel stickier.

She watched the door. Any second that wheel would turn and the door would open. Someone would step through and they would have a glass of water.

Her head ached. She thought about water and willed the lock to turn. Her powers were useless in that room, but if she thought about something for long enough, it would happen eventually. It always did.

Time passed. She didn’t know how much, only that her throat felt even drier at the end of it. That last glass of water she’d had—how long had it been? Dinner the night before? Lunch? What time was it now?

What if that had been the last one….ever?

She pondered the thought longer than she wanted. No more water. No more food. No more Dad, no more Grace or Pogo. Grace was upstairs—however far overhead_ upstairs_ was—fixing the next meal for her siblings while they played. Dad was watching while Pogo stood nearby and watched too, or worked somewhere else in the house, and nobody was thinking of her. Nobody _would_ think of her.

Her eyes stung. She gasped in a breath, trying to hold back a sob—but what was the point? No one would see it. No one would see_ her_. Not now, not ever. They’d go on playing and watching while she kept waiting.

The crying began without her meaning it to. A few tears slipped out, the rest weren’t far behind; she drew a long breath to try and hold them in and they came rushing out before she could think to stop them. No one was coming. No one was going to see.

She didn’t hear the whirr of the lock. The clank of the door as it opened and closed made her jump.

“Dry your tears, Number Seven. They’re unbecoming.”

The sight of Dad threatened to turn her sobs into tears of joy, but she wiped a sleeve across her eyes, then did it again when that didn’t clear them up. She tried to make her breath steady and even, but it shuddered its way in and trembled its way out.

She thought Dad might leave by the time she could look up, but he was still there, still holding a glass in his hand.

A full glass.

Number Seven sat as still as she could, gripping the edge of her bed to keep from jumping to her feet and grabbing for whatever was in that glass. Water, juice—she didn’t care. He could have brought her something that tasted the way wine smelled and she’d gulp it down.

He handed her the glass.

She’d never liked cranberry juice. Dad, Grace, Pogo—they all said it was good for her, but the taste made her tongue curl and her skin shiver and sent her off in search of the nearest sweet thing to wash it from her palate. This glass seemed especially bitter, but she didn’t care. The juice was gone in a matter of seconds, leaving her to shudder at the aftertaste.

Dad took the glass back and set it on the floor. For a second she thought he might leave again, but the thought didn’t frighten her as much. He’d brought her something to drink, even if it wasn’t something she liked. Maybe he wouldn’t leave her alone this time, not forever. Maybe, if he left, Grace would reappear with whatever the next meal was supposed to be.

But he didn’t leave. He folded his arms and stood there. The light overhead wasn’t the brightest, but he stood at the perfect angle and height for his monocle to catch it, shining just brightly enough to turn opaque. Something about the sight of it, or maybe about Dad himself, sent her fear sinking down and down like a weight tossed into the bathtub. She could feel it if she grasped for it, but it slipped past her reach and she let it go. What she felt wasn’t quite calm, not the sort that came over her when all was right, but she didn’t have another word for it so_ calm _would have to do.

“Do you know what you’ve been given, Number Seven?”

When Dad asked questions, sometimes he expected to be given an answer and sometimes he expected to give one. She tried to figure which category this one fell into, but the puzzle had too many pieces missing. Number Seven squinted at the picture she was able to form, trying to guess at the image Dad wanted her to see, but only saw vague shapes and contradictory colors.

“In that glass,” Dad said, taking a step forward, “was a medication that will negate your powers for a time—regardless of whether or not you remain in this room.”

Sometimes Dad used words like that, big and strange words that left Number Seven with the feeling she was listening to a person whose comprehension had so far surpassed her own that she might never keep up. She could often guess at what a word meant by how the others arranged themselves around it; but there were times when she could only nod and hope Dad wouldn’t quiz her on anything later.

He hadn’t used the word _negate_ before. She hadn’t heard anything like it. But the tiniest of smiles curving Dad’s lips left little room for doubt.

Number Seven reached toward the nearest sound—but the room was so quiet and she wasn’t sure it would have obeyed her anyway. The medication, the juice—she had to get it out of her. Her stomach already felt sick; maybe if she moved fast enough, spun around too quickly, did something wrong in just the right way, the medication would—

Dad was on his knees as soon as she moved, his hands on her arms the instant she stood. Number Seven tried to dart for the opposite corner, but his grip tightened. A small yelp sprang out before she could stop it.

“You have left me no choice, Number Seven.” He hadn’t raised his voice, but the soft growl beneath it made her wish he would. “Had you responded to earlier warnings, you might have avoided this outcome entirely.”

She tried to speak, but all her words had fled. He gave her arms a small shake, just enough to sting her skin.

“_I _decide what is and is not an appropriate use of your powers._ I _decide when you may use them freely, and_ I_ decide when to revoke them. If your rebellion persists, you may force me to make this loss permanent.” 

Number Seven couldn’t speak now, not even if she’d wanted to. The pain in her arms had overtaken her throat. She wanted to wipe at her eyes, but Dad wasn’t letting go. A rough yank brought her close enough to smell his breath. 

“If you would like to keep your powers, Number Seven, you will do with them as I say—and _only_ as I say. Do I make myself clear?”

She wanted to shake her head. She wanted to run to the other side of the room, throw herself to the floor, and give in to her tears. She wanted to do whatever it took to open that latch and run to the elevator and take it up and up until she was back in the Academy, back in the sunlight, back with her siblings and Pogo and Grace and grilled cheese and all the water she could drink.

But Dad wouldn’t let her go.

“Have we reached an understanding, Number Seven?”

He expected an answer. The last answer she wanted to give, and the only one that would get her back to a place where time marched on. The only one that would make him give her powers back. Hot tears slipped out, and she watched them slide to the floor. It was better than watching his face as she did what he wanted her to do.

She nodded.


	2. Hearing Voices

_You are the king of an island of one _  
_All alone in a world that lost its only black sun_  
_You are the king of an island of one _  
_Little tyrant soon to come undone _  
_All hail the king.   
__—_Anberlin, “Little Tyrants” 

* * *

His death made the news.

That came as no surprise whatsoever. Sir Reginald Hargreeves was known the world over, though it had never been clear if this was by accident or by design. Perhaps he had chased the spotlight only to spurn its advances and make those behind it all the more curious. Perhaps he had simply used the cover of secrecy to do what he’d always liked and left the world to salivate over every scrap of news that managed to escape that mansion. 

Or perhaps he had known from the beginning what the world would think of his methods and had hidden them behind a wrought-iron fence and expertly packaged lies. 

_“…found dead in his mansion earlier this afternoon.” _

Vanya clutched the strap of her violin case. She wasn’t the only one there, not by far. Bars like this tended to be most crowded on the weekends, but that didn’t mean they stood vacant the rest of the week. This seemed to be one of those that attracted a range of people close to her age, provided they liked cigarette smoke and fried food alongside a dizzying array of beverages. Others like her, who had seen Sir Reginald’s face pop up on this screen or that and had needed to hear the report rather than watch it, formed the bulk of the crowd. 

_“His death appears to have been natural, although authorities will still perform a thorough autopsy to rule out foul play.” _

Vanya sniffed. If murder had ended him, the police would have known as much at first glance. She’d lost count of all the criminals she and her siblings had put away over the years, but she’d be damned if Dad hadn’t. Any one of them would have been honored to have finished him off, and any one of them would have left some sort of calling card, be it an artistic fatal wound or a message scratched in blood. 

_“Although most well-known as the founder of the Umbrella Academy, Sir Reginald Hargreeves will be remembered as a globetrotting man of mystery who appreciated his privacy as much as he appreciated making our world a safer place.” _

She could have made the entire bar tremble at that. Shake the plates, rattle the glasses, send bottles crashing against each other as their contents formed a dirt-laced cocktail on the tile. Watch heads swivel this way and that as their search for _what_ caused the tumult became a search for _who_ and—finally, a search for _why_. Maybe she’d answer. Maybe she’d simply turn on her heel and stride off into the night. Six months ago, her reaction to the chaos would have been her one and only concern. 

Six months ago, she didn’t have the courts breathing down her neck. 

Vanya elbowed her way through the throng of impromptu mourners. Those that knew her on sight stepped as far aside as the small space would allow; those that didn’t stared transfixed as the reporter repeated the few details he’d been given. No one tried to stop her. No one put a hand on her arm and offered a few canned words of comfort, or asked a question she couldn’t answer. One way or another, they simply moved aside until she’d pushed the door open and stepped out into the chill. She tugged a long breath into her lungs, scarcely noticing the lack of cigarette smoke. 

Dad was dead. 

It should have been expected; he’d sported white hair and wrinkles for as long as she could remember. But he’d remained spry up to the moment she’d left, and every moment after as far as she could tell. Keen enough to recognize any tune he didn’t like and quash it accordingly. Quick enough to identify everything she’d done wrong on a mission before she'd caught her breath. Strong enough to leave bruises ringing her wrists if her words or deeds failed to please him. 

_“You know how easily I can bring this to an end, Number Seven.”_

Her next breath tore itself from her throat. She grasped instinctively at the noises around her—a group of friends chattering, cars gliding by on the street beside—wanting, _needing_ to throw it toward the brick wall of the bar, watch dust and debris shower to the sidewalk and drive Dad’s voice from her mind. 

_Prison time._

She held to the sound, but couldn’t bring herself to release it. Not yet. There was power in that noise, and she wasn’t ready to be defenseless. Those words, those two words that had been repeated far too often since the incident—they kept the sound where it was. Like a rock in her hand, it remained motionless, awaiting the transformation she would grant. 

_Prison time. Prison. You could go to prison. _

Vanya let the sound go, feeling it slide from her grasp like a leash towed along by an unruly dog. She sucked in another breath, and another. Her first steps away from the bar staggered a bit, but she steadied herself and walked on. When the nearest bus stop came in sight, she took a turn to the left and set off for the next one. 

Dad was dead. 

The thought didn’t bring a rush of sorrow or regret or any of the other things therapists said were normal to feel when a loved one passed on. Of course, calling Dad a _loved one_ was less a stretch and more a blatant lie, but that thought roused none of the approved emotions, either. She pictured him lying in a coffin, hands folded over his chest and felt nothing. He was dead. Gone. Beyond even Klaus’ reach, unless his latest stint in rehab had worked a miracle. The fact brought no more sorrow than knowing that Paris was the capital of France. 

_“Perhaps for our next mission, you can stand beside me and watch as your siblings fight alone.”_

Vanya quickened her step, drawing a long breath of the cold air. The bus stop stood just ahead, and it was empty. She sat on the bench so quickly it creaked beneath her weight, her violin case sending out a loud _crack _as it collided. A quick check revealed no damage to case or instrument, and she snapped the case closed before the temptation to play overwhelmed her better judgment. 

_“Is this what you would have me do, Number Seven?”_

Dad was dead. She’d never hear that voice again. Never be called Number Seven again. 

Her grip on the violin case tightened, turning her knuckles white. That voice had fallen silent, the man who owned it gone from the world. It would never find her again. 

The street was far from noiseless this time of night. A group of boys—high schoolers, from the look of it—approached from her left, nudging each other and laughing loudly. To her right a car’s engine was shut off and a door slammed. Other vehicles ambled by on the street in front of the bus shelter; footsteps sounded behind it. Sound surrounded her, and each one called for her to take it in her grip and make it live, to tear down the shelter, crack the sidewalk, soothe her fury through the fleeting peace of destruction. 

Vanya stood so abruptly her violin case nearly spilled from her lap. Her apartment was a good thirty-minute walk from this stop, but she couldn’t escape that voice if she remained still. 

* * *

Five should have buried them properly. 

He’d covered them with earth, bringing it in by the shovelful when he needed more to cover them completely. He’d patted it down, making each makeshift plot look as even as possible. He’d found enough small shards of rubble to mark where they lay. One for Luther. Two for Diego. Three for Allison. Four for Klaus. 

They’d been half-submerged in the rubble of the Academy when he found them, skin and clothes brushed with a layer of dust and pocked with cuts and bruises. He’d tried to move Luther first, taking his twin’s cold hands in his and tugging with all his might, nudging or tossing some of the debris pinning him down out of the way when those efforts failed. 

He’d ended with his hands pressed against a wall, trying to gulp enough air to sustain his tears. 

The smoke was more or less gone now. Five wasn’t sure if the whiffs he caught now and then were remnants or memory, but he’d come to accept them. Like the ache that always pressed against his head from all sides, or the weariness that clung to every limb, it was just a part of life after the end. 

Five set the fourth stone on Klaus’ grave, nudging it until it formed a small circle with the other three. These looked much nicer than the rubble he’d used before, adding a tiny patch of color to the ash. Flowers would have looked even better, but most plants had been hard to come by. This handful of colored rocks would have to do. 

He stood, battling a wash of dizziness. Ben wasn’t buried in the Academy, and neither was Vanya. If they had simply been out and about when the Academy fell, chances were they’d been trapped by another fallen building or caught in one of those fires that seemed to have overtaken the entire city. If Dad had sent them on a mission prior to the end, they could quite possibly be alive and well on the other side of the world. 

The image of that charred body, lying prone just beyond his field of vision, burst into his thoughts. 

Five sucked in a breath, willing it not to shake. Skin burned beyond recognition. Clothes nearly gone, the few tatters remaining stripped of color. He hadn’t looked longer than the few seconds it took to process what he was seeing, but the body was too far gone to make out any distinguishing features or other clues as to its identity. If it belonged to an outsider, he couldn’t say how they had found their way into the Academy before the world burned. And if it belonged to family….

He shook his head slightly, shutting his eyes against the image of Vanya shouting in fury as furniture trembled and walls cracked. She hadn’t been there when the Academy fell. Dad, for whatever reason, had sent her and Ben alone on a mission. 

They were still there, those remains. He hadn’t buried them. With no way to know whose they were, he couldn’t say whether they belonged in the Academy with his siblings or if they belonged elsewhere in the city. 

A breeze ruffled his hair, stale wind carrying a smell he couldn’t identify and a sound that might have been cracking char, burned limbs twitching, ruined head turning toward him, nonexistent lips parting to say—

Five scrambled for the edge of the rubble and bolted for the gate. There was no reason to take it, the fence surrounding it having long since collapsed, but he dodged a pile of brick and darted through. 

_“Five….” _

The voice was cracked, hoarse as though from a long illness or years of disuse, but he’d recognize it anywhere. He’d heard it often enough, screaming for what he’d done in her room or what he’d said or just for being in the kitchen when she wanted it to herself. 

_“Don’t you dare run from me…” _

Five’s lungs already burned. His legs threatened to buckle. He had to keep running, but he’d collapse before he was far enough for that voice, for its owner, to catch up with him. 

He had to jump. 

He hadn’t jumped since landing here, in a world reduced to ash and cinders. If a jump through time took him to the end of everything, a spatial jump might take him to the middle of a ravine. 

_“I know where you….” _

Five held the destination in his mind. Not the library, but a street close by, a street ruined by whoever—_whatever_—had struck the final blow. There was a little house on it, one that hadn’t collapsed entirely. Its front was brick and the rest was white vinyl siding, with a little iron sign by what had been the sidewalk bearing the surname of the home’s former owners. He pictured that house. Thought of it. Imagined standing out front, studying the ash-stained brick and blackened siding, his foot inches from the fallen sign. 

And then he jumped. 

The darkness cleared and he tumbled to his knees. Breath snagged on his parched throat and he coughed. His knees gave way; he fell forward, supporting his weight on arms that protested the strain. Still the coughs kept coming, tearing at his throat as he dropped to his side, pressing against his chest until he thought the pain alone might send him into blackness.

But he was still conscious when they cleared.

Five kept his eyes closed, hugging his knees against the lingering pain. Nothing seemed to be broken, and the ground he lay on seemed steady enough, lacking any of the sharp rocks or rubble he’d half-expected to find. But he’d see it all the moment he opened his eyes. He’d be inches from the edge of a rooftop, feet from the den of a coyote or some other starving animal.

He opened his eyes.

Asphalt greeted him. Inches from his nose was the edge of an iron sign. He raised his head just enough, only enough, to spy a few concrete steps leading to a brick housefront with a familiar shape. When he sat up a little more, he could just make out the small streak on vinyl siding where he’d wiped away ash to reveal a little strip of white.

Five lay his head on the asphalt and closed his eyes.

* * *

The first call came while Vanya was fixing breakfast.

She paused, spatula held over her French toast, listening past the music. The High Kings hadn’t been her first choice, but after a few loud knocks against the floor from her downstairs neighbors, she’d been forced to trade the Rumjacks for something that didn’t demand to be played at top volume. Much as she still wanted to stomp downstairs and give them a piece of her mind, she admitted flute and acoustic guitar were easier to tune out than electric guitar and bagpipes.

It could be the Van Burghs, wanting to lay down yet another law for her upcoming visit to their home. She shoved the spatula under the French toast with more force than necessary. _One_ asshole had taken out _one_ restraining order for an incident entirely unrelated to music or teaching, and she suddenly couldn’t be trusted to host students in her apartment.

The phone rang again. If it was the Van Burghs she ought to answer, might be closer to losing Katie as a student if she didn’t, but they’d expect her to speak calmly and agree to each new mandate they’d invented. Between the neighbors and what she’d learned the night before, she—

The night before.

Dad.

Her own voice played, followed by the beep of the answering machine.

_“Miss Vanya.” _

She froze, eggs sizzling in the pan. She’d dodged that voice for over ten years, but she’d know it anywhere.

_“I am not certain if you heard last night’s broadcast. Perhaps you did, in which case I am sorry you didn’t hear of your father’s passing from one who knew him.” _

Vanya straightened. There was no one around to toss her in prison for making the pan tremble and the picture frames adorning her walls shake, so she let them shake as she set the spatula aside.

_“I know this may be a difficult time for you, Miss Vanya, especially if this is not the first you’re hearing of his death. But—“_

She cleared the room in a few quick strides and snatched up the receiver. Pogo’s next words were bright with surprise.

“Miss Vanya! I confess I—“

Vanya slammed the receiver down as hard as she could.

The second came while Vanya was out coaching Katie through the Irish folk tunes she liked, and by the time she returned it was already several hours old. She returned the call, slamming the phone down at the sound of Mom’s voice.

Vanya went from one job to another, stopping back at her apartment when she needed rest or a bite to eat. Sometimes the phone rang while she was there, sometimes it did not. Slamming the phone down lost what little satisfaction it had carried, and she let the calls go. Her answering machine became an oral history of an event that had yet to occur. 

_“I’ve not had the opportunity to speak with Master Klaus, although I am certain he shall be in attendance.”   
_

Naturally. Dad’s estate would probably lose half its value within the first forty-eight hours of Klaus’ return. 

_“Hello, Vanya dear. Luther has just returned from the Moon.” _

And she knew he couldn’t _wait_ to brag about it. 

_“Miss Allison has provided me with a few dates that would fit within her schedule. I’ll give them to you now….” _

Ah yes, her _schedule_. At least Vanya wasn’t the only one in the family forced onto a therapist’s couch once a week. Were they on halfway speaking terms, Vanya might have called to say as much. 

_“Diego told me he’ll be present at the memorial service. I’m certain he’d love to see both his sisters there.” _

Vanya nearly chocked on mirthless laughter and fried rice. If Mom had to tell that particular lie about one of her siblings, Diego had to be the worst candidate—and then only by default. The true winner of that dubious honor hadn’t set foot in the Academy in sixteen years. Sixteen blessed years. 

She checked her calendar against the dates Allison had given, hoping to find a student on most of them, a therapy session on the rest. Instead, she found gaps that aligned. 

Of course, there was no need to call back. No need to let Pogo know she had space in her schedule to attend the funeral. She could simply let the dates come and go, allow her siblings to bury him or scatter his ashes or whatever he’d demanded they do with his body as they exulted in her absence.

He finally caught her while peeling garlic for the pasta she’d just added to the boiling water on the stove. She’d half a mind to ignore it, let him add his latest message to the tape she’d one day smash to dust, but he hadn’t stopped calling yet and showed no signs of slowing.

“Ah, hello, Miss Vanya.” No surprise in his voice this time. Only the same coolness she’d heard when caught in a lie. “I was wondering when I might find you in a free moment.”

“I’m not going, Pogo.”

“It was among your father’s last requests, Miss Vanya. He wished for all his children to lay him to rest.”

“Yeah, well, he’s dead, so I don’t see how he’s gonna make that happen.”

“Through certain…_stipulations _in his will, of which you will be made aware upon your return to the Academy.” 

“I don’t need his money.” 

“Money was not the sole focus of his will, Miss Vanya.” 

Vanya could have asked what he meant, should have asked what he meant, but the words stuck in her throat. For a moment, she was back at the Academy, sitting down to a bowl of oatmeal that she knew, from that glint in Dad’s eyes, would rob her of her powers for the day. That first bite was always the worst, the second and third no better. All of them threatened a gag. All of them had to be choked down. 

“What….” She fought to keep the words as even as possible. “What else did he put in it?” 

“You may learn this with your siblings following his memorial service.” 

Vanya gritted her teeth, but the sliver of anger she felt hadn’t yet grown enough to overtake the fear coiling in her stomach. She could still refuse to go. Stay home, try her hand at writing music again, bake cookies, maybe even schedule another student if she was lucky. But the question of what would happen if she didn’t—of what that will mandated be done to her if she didn’t—stood like a shadowy figure just beyond her sight. Were she to stay away, she’d find that question answered before she had time to defend herself. 

There was only one question to ask now. The only one Pogo would answer. 

“When is it?” 

* * *

Delores was ecstatic. 

He’d jumped. Just a small one, just enough to get him from the Academy to the library’s surrounding neighborhood, but he’d done it. He’d jumped, and he’d done it without landing someplace worse than the one he'd escaped. Now he could get from one end of the city to the other. He could zip to the countryside to see if any edible plants had sprung up. He could go home. 

“There’s a big difference between a spatial jump and a time jump, Delores.” 

She didn’t care. A jump was a jump, and if he could manage one, he could manage the other. 

Usually when she spoke, there was a bit of chiding in what she said—drink more water, eat more food, test out that filtration system already, you’ve read the instructions and warnings a hundred times and no, you won’t poison yourself, just give it a try, will you? But this time, her every word was laced with excitement. Joy, even. 

“I already tried to go back. I—I don’t think you _can _go backward. Just forward.” 

He knew he ought to be scavenging—no matter how much food he set aside, no matter how carefully he rationed it, the cans always disappeared quicker than he wanted—but when Delores kept on about what _might_ happen and what _might_ be possible, he found himself back among what remained of the library’s stacks. Some books were gone, some left unreadable, but others remained whole. Enough remained whole. 

It took some doing to get to the section he needed. The Academy’s library hadn’t used the Dewey Decimal System, and navigating this one was a bit of a challenge without a librarian to guide him through the stew of numbers and letters, to say nothing of the stacks that no longer existed. But he found them. Against the odds, against the voice in the back of his mind telling him he should be doing something more useful, he found them—and sat down to read. 

Time travel gave rise to debate. Ignoring those who called it possible only within narrow limitations left Five with an abundance of theories and models, some of which were consistent with one another and some of which were not. Some claimed travel was possible in only one direction; others, which Five liked better, allowed for the intersection between a point in the future and a point in the past. While these didn’t outright say it was possible to jump from the latter to the former, the very act of drawing a line between them provided hope, however scant, that the line could be traversed in either direction.

He found a chalkboard and some chalk and took notes. He looked past the contradictions and found commonalities. Similar notions regarding the shape of time, whether linear or curved or somewhere between the two. Potential mechanics for stepping from one point to the other. Calculations acting as clairvoyance and steering all in one. They were just theories, of course, but theories crafted by brilliant physicists with more time than he to think through the ramifications of what he needed to do. Theories Dad had read. Theories he hadn’t paid much mind. 

“I _did_ find a lot of food yesterday,” Five said when Delores remarked on the speed with which he’d filled the chalkboard. “But I need to get back to work.” 

He copied another equation from the journal article he’d found. The scratching chalk blended with Delores’ voice.

“Look, _you’re_ the one who told me I should try to get back. I’m just working out the best way.”

The wind ruffled his pages as Delores spoke again.

“I can eat tomorrow.” 

She wasn’t finished. Five bowed his head, sighing, and plucked a can of beans from his collection. 

He found a few umbrellas and tarps, set them up around the chalkboard as he continued to read, tossing out aspects that contradicted his own limited experience and seizing on aspects that elaborated on what he knew. A theory of his own took root, burst through the ground, and sprouted leaves. Five watered it and sheltered it from the ash as best he could, but the shape was not one he favored.

There were some theorists who believed location irrelevant to time travel. If one could zip through_ time_, they reasoned, surely one could pop up at any _place _one desired. But when Five had torn through one season and into another, the area around him hadn’t moved. Stores closed and snow fell, but he’d never left the street he started on. On the surface, it appeared one might always end up back where they began—that a jump from Christmas Eve to Labor Day would never deviate from the city in which the jump was made.

But the longer Five looked, the more evidence he saw for greater depth. He’d jumped without a clear destination in mind, only a desire to prove he could. No location. No specific point. And yet he’d wound up running along the same street. That could be coincidence—but it could suggest symmetry. If past and present could cross at certain points, perhaps that crossing could only occur at a point common to both. He’d seen it drawn as two lines intersecting, all four points extending out into perpetuity from one central hub. That point could simply mark a day and year—or it could mark a city, a street, a building. The closer one remained to the location where one began, the easier it might be to reach the time one wanted.

Unless his math was off, returning to his siblings meant returning to the Academy.

* * *

Vanya stepped over the threshold and turned thirteen again.

The Academy had always felt too big for a family of their size. Seven was by no means a small number of children, but it seemed to take more time than necessary to get from the dining area to the courtyard, and late-night trips to the kitchen from her bedroom were often fraught with more danger than any trip to the fridge warranted. She’d considered telling Dad that they could have shaved a few precious minutes off preparation time for missions simply by living in a smaller house, but then she’d decided she didn’t care.

He hadn’t changed a thing since the day she’d left. The tile was still spotless, still shining faintly in what clouded daylight managed to enter the room, amplifying the gentle slap of her sneakers. White pillars supporting mahogany arches lacked any trace of dust. Wood panels gleamed, and she caught a whiff of oil soap. Three steps in and Vanya half-expected Dad to step out from the front room, demanding to know why she’d thought it appropriate to so flagrantly disregard the family’s schedule.

He was dead. Dust and ash. She’d never hear that voice again.

A few steps took her further into the entryway, close to the front room. As a teen, she’d tried to train herself not to look. She’d tried to keep her eyes forward, keep them on a book in her hand, keep them pointed away from the far wall. She’d tried jogging, she’d tried skirting toward the opposite side of the entryway, she’d tried avoiding the front door as much as Dad’s insistence on public appearances would allow. But in the end, she’d always looked—just as she looked now. 

Sure enough, Five gazed out from the confines of his portrait, one arm draped over a wooden railing. It was his expression that had always made Vanya want to tear the portrait from the wall—that solemn and thoughtful look, as though he contemplated the secrets of the universe while the photographer snapped his photo. If he had ever once worn that look of his own volition, Vanya hadn’t been there to see it. When he’d gazed at her, he’d always worn at least the ghost of a smile, smug and mischievous all at once. _Guess what I did to your clothes?_ that smile said. _Too late_, it said.

The others had always laughed at his pranks. Laughed while she screamed. Laughed while Dad did nothing. That dignified frown, that pensive gaze—it belied what Five had truly been, beneath that facade. Dad should have seen it the day he ran, but instead he’d enshrined Five above the mantelpiece, honored his defiance and watched for his return. 

“Look who decided to show up.”

Vanya grit her teeth. She would have turned away as Diego descended the stairs, but she’d already been facing his direction and he wouldn’t take it without comment. “Need any help getting down the stairs?”

He smiled and continued at his leisurely pace. Vanya wasn’t sure which angered her more. “Oh, you wouldn’t do that. Not now.”

She’d expected a remark like this. Newspapers and tabloids alike had pounced on the story before she’d even left the police station. Not all of them had considered it front-page news, but even those that had pushed it back to page eight took pains to mention prior warnings, other incidents, turning it all into a saga of near-misses and eventual comeuppance. Diego would have read every single one of those stories, and Vanya had an inkling that if she visited his pitiful excuse for an apartment, she’d find he’d clipped them out and pinned each and every one of them to his fridge. Of course he knew. Of course he’d gloat. 

That didn’t stop a jolt of fear. 

He’d taunted her when they were younger, daring her to lash out with all the rage she had in hopes of forcing her to cross the arbitrary lines Dad had drawn and watching in glee as she reaped the consequences. But he’d done so from a distance. Left a note on her door. Stolen her favorite cereal. Sent Five into her room with a list. He’d mocked her openly, of course, but only when nothing else he’d tried had delivered the same satisfaction. 

_“Prison won’t be the walk in the park you think it’ll be.”_

The officers who’d responded to past incidents had addressed her with confidence, but never threats. Nothing like what they’d told her at the station. She’d wondered then, and since, if they’d stumbled onto Dad’s secret. 

Diego may have been forcibly ejected from the police academy, but he hadn’t let that keep him from inflicting his company on the city’s officers. Between bouts of their ongoing game of catch and release, he’d have had time to drop a hint like that, and it would have been just like Dad to hand over the name of that medication to everyone but her. Vanya could just see him leaning over Patch’s desk, lowering his voice to say that he _“might be able to help you solve a problem, if you’ll get me out of this one.”_

She watched him cooly trace a finger over the rim of the vase. It was nowhere near deafening, but in the quiet of the Academy, the gentle scrape of his skin against glass was enough to call to her. And in the quiet of the Academy, it would be enough to send him flying backward, enough to make him hit the furthest wall with a crack that was not only splintering wood.. Enough to rip that confidence from him and replace it with terror. 

“Diego? Di—there you are. Luther wants to—” 

Allison halted. Her gaze landed on Diego only briefly, choosing instead to rest on her. The distance was too great for Vanya to read the finer nuances of her sister’s expression, but she’d seen the broad strokes of it before, when Dad walked into a room unexpected and unannounced. 

“Luther wants to meet in the common room,” Allison said, shifting her full attention back to Diego—a move that seemed to restore some of her composure. 

“He say why?” 

“No. Just seemed eager to get started.” 

“Fine.” Diego lifted his finger from the vase, but not before turning to Vanya and raising his eyebrows in an expression she couldn’t quite read. Then, with their eyes locked, he gave the glass a flick that sent a pure, hollow note ringing through the entryway. Allison gave her one last glance, and walked with Diego toward the common room. 

Not once. Not once had Allison spoken to her. Not once had Diego called attention to her presence. She had stood mere feet from the both of them, and neither had bothered to extend Luther’s invitation to her, preferring instead to walk off and leave her like some stranger, stranded in the entrance. 

Vanya waited until they’d disappeared around the corner, then gave them another minute or two. No one peered out and asked her if she was coming in. No one called her name. 

Paintings rattled on the walls as she turned on her heel and marched back toward the front door. Maybe Klaus asked if she was coming. Maybe Luther wondered what was taking her so long. Whatever they might have said was cut off by the slam of the door, and drowned out by a crack of thunder from overhead. 

* * *

Five wasn’t sure where in the Academy he needed to stand, but he couldn’t venture toward the center. Not without that croaking voice calling to him again. He suppressed a shudder, but heard nothing aside from the wind. 

He released the handle of Delores’ wagon and read his notes again. He hadn’t spent as much time on them as he would have liked; enthusiasts loved to discuss time travel, and he could have spent years reading their theories and formulating his own. Instead, he’d spent weeks. 

“I should read some more,” he told Delores. 

He tried to focus his attention entirely on his notes, but her voice cut through his thoughts. 

“I don’t know how long we’ve got. Don’t even know if there _is_ a window here.” 

His throat closed as she spoke again. If there was indeed a window through which he could step from present to past, it would be easier to slip through alone. Hanging onto the wagon, or even just Delores’ hand, could drag him down and keep him from stepping through the rift before it vanished. 

“I’m sorry, Delores.” 

Her voice was gentle, with no trace of anger. Sorrow, yes, but lacing encouragement. He was leaving, yes, but leaving for his family. Leaving for something better. 

Five embraced her. She couldn’t hug him back, he knew; but as he held her close, he thought she might want to. That if she could have held him as tightly as he held her, she would have done it without hesitation. 

He only pulled away at her urging. 

Five clenched fists, watched them glow blue, and pushed at the barrier separating past from present. When he’d tried before, it had been like pushing at reinforced concrete with his bare hands. Now, it was like pushing at cloth a foot thick. It didn’t quite_ yield _to his touch, but it _moved_. He just needed to find a tear, or a gap beneath wide enough for him to shimmy through. 

He closed his eyes, concentrating on the barrier he couldn’t see. On his siblings. He thought of how he’d known them, and how they’d appeared when he found them, and didn’t much care which he got as long as they were alive. As long as they were breathing and healthy and walking around a world that was still intact under a sky that was still blue. He felt along the barrier, seeking out any weaknesses, any cracks he might turn into a tear. 

There. 

Five had no time to wonder where it might lead—only to grasp it in both hands and pry it apart. Maybe he’d step through and find himself back at home with Dad tapping his foot. Maybe he’d land three years or five years or ten years after he’d vanished, or twenty years before his birth. 

Or maybe his calculations were wrong. 

He could just as easily find himself alone in a place without his family. Without Delores. Not a world of burning buildings and falling ash, but a world of nothing. A world so far gone there was nothing left to burn, no plants left to overtake the ruined roads, no air left to breathe. Not merely a dead world, but a world where life was no longer welcome. If that was where he landed….

If that was where he landed, then it would be over. 

He gave one more tug, and the barrier gave. 

It was like looking through a window shrouded in a haze of fog. There was a large square something that could have been the side of a building, a stretch of green and an expanse of grey. He would have laughed with joy, but the barrier already wanted to snap back into place. Seconds more and his concentration would no longer be enough. 

He lunged through. 

The headache took him immediately. It had found him during his first excursion through time, but he’d been able to think past it. Able to ignore it long enough to try and get back. Able to do more than sink to his knees as cold drops splashed onto his skin. 

A door slammed shut somewhere close by. Four figures appeared in the rain, drew close enough for him to make out shapes he thought he knew. Shapes he’d buried months ago. 

He tried to remain upright, just to watch the faces and see if he knew them, but the pain threatened to knock him over. Five curled on his side before it could, feeling the wet grass prickle his cheek and drops of water caress his aching head. 

“Oh my god.” 

It was a woman’s voice—not the inexplicably clear one of a mannequin that had learned to talk, but a real, human voice, dulled by distance and rain. Wherever he’d landed, whenever that was, both grass and humans had survived. 

“Is that—?” 

This one was closer than the last, a little clearer. Five knew he should sit up, but pain held him to the ground. 

“You…you guys see Number Five too, right?” 

Tears sprang to his eyes. Maybe it wasn’t his siblings, maybe it was only a search party Dad had organized in a rare moment of concern, or one that had organized of its own accord—but they knew his name. They’d seen him, they knew him, and they could match his name to his face even when that face was half-hidden by the ground. 

Someone knelt beside him; a hand touched his shoulder. 

“Five? Five, can you hear me?” 

A man’s voice, gruff but not unpleasant, unfamiliar but not unwelcome. Five almost didn’t want to look. If he looked, he could see a stranger staring back, a face that hadn’t been burned into his memory since the day he’d buried his siblings. 

He opened his eyes, turned his head just enough to see whoever was near. Blond hair cut short. Faint stubble sprinkled over a strong jaw. Shoulders wider than they should have been, hiding beneath an overcoat. Hands cloaked in fingerless gloves. Five had grasped those hands, tried in vain to pull their owner from the rubble. He’d covered that face with blighted earth and marked it with a stone. 

“Luther?” 

His mouth twitched upward toward a smile, though the corners didn’t quite make it. “Yeah. It—it’s me, Five.” 

Five’s throat closed. Tears spilled down his cheeks, washed away by the rain. He raised an arm to wipe them away, useless though it was, and found a hand beneath his shoulder, coaxing him to sit up, helping him rise—but it wasn’t Luther who smiled back at him. Her smile, so full of joy and sorrow all mingled together, sent a fresh round of tears cascading down. Allison pulled him close. 

“Shhhh shhhh shhhh.” She rubbed his back the way Mom would when he was sick, and he heard a catch in her voice. “It’s okay. It’s all right. We’ve got you.” 

He couldn’t speak. He wanted to, if only to show Allison he was fine and ease the worry in her voice, soothe the tears away, but he could only sob into her shoulder. Other hands patted his shoulders, tousled his hair, said small soothing things. 

Four siblings. Four voices. Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus. The four he’d found in the Academy. No Ben, but no Vanya. The house was still intact. The rain was natural. 

After a moment, Allison lifted her head. “Diego?” 

Diego stood. “I’ll get Mom.” 

Five raised his head, hoping to watch Diego as he disappeared into the Academy, but a flash of movement beside the door caught his eye. He followed it, and his breath caught in his throat. 

She’d stopped to grab an umbrella. Her dark hair was still dry, falling in pin-straight locks about her shoulders. A deep purple jacket was layered over a dark grey shirt, and she’d paired it with jeans and Converse shoes nearly soaked through. Five tensed, waiting for her to approach and stand beside, but she halted a yard or so away. Rain hammered a staccato beat against her umbrella. 

“Vanya.” Luther had gotten to his feet—though for what, Five couldn’t say. “Thought you’d left.” 

“Yeah,” she said, but her gaze didn’t land on Luther. Five felt it rest on him, and the weight of it made him shrink further into Allison's arms. “Me too.” 


	3. Worth the Whiskey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, everyone. I know I mentioned I'd hoped to update biweekly on Saturdays, but life intervened this month and…well, here we are. Hope this one was worth the wait.

“You okay here?” 

“Yeah.” 

Luther opened his arms slightly, and Five slid to the floor. Klaus had never considered, in the sixteen years he’d been missing, just how_ small_ Five was. Not that the fact itself had eluded him—old pictures resurfaced in tabloids or narrative magazines from time to time, proving they’d all been a hell of a lot shorter back when they were still in Dad’s clutches—but it hadn’t struck him as something worth noticing when he’d stumbled into the courtyard. Now, watching him glance around in bewilderment beside a twin nearly twice his height, Klaus couldn’t think about much else. 

“Where’s Mom?” Luther asked. “Thought you were gonna get her.” 

“I—” The rest of Diego’s retort collapsed when he saw who was—and wasn’t—in the kitchen. “Shit. Mom!” 

They’d lost Allison somewhere between the courtyard and the kitchen, when she’d announced her intent to get some towels. Luther had carried Five in, cradled in his arms lest walking worsen whatever condition led him to collapse in the courtyard. Diego jogged out of the kitchen, retracing their steps through the corridor in search of the one who could provide some guidance. Klaus stood by the sink and racked his brain for something, anything he could say. 

Five wasn’t wearing his Academy uniform. Not unexpected—he’d never been fond of those starched collars and plaid sweater vests—but he’d always joked about replacing that uniform with everything from jeans and a T-shirt to a tuxedo paired with evening gloves and a billowing cape. Maybe it was the leftover high or the cognac haze clouding his thoughts, but Klaus couldn’t conjure a single reason why Five might have paired scuffed boots and a heavy jacket with sturdy jeans and a pair of aviator-style goggles around his neck.

“You, uh, you need anything?” Luther asked. 

Five shrugged. To say he had always smiled before his disappearance would be a misstatement. He’d frowned. He’d grouched. He’d cried for the minute or two it took to realize he’d been seen, the second or two it took for his face to twist and for him to slink off down the hall. But there had always been a glimmer of mischief behind those eyes, a flicker within his expression. Whether harsh with fury or gentle with laughter, Klaus couldn’t recall a time when that light had gone out. 

Until now. 

“Klaus, could you get him some water?” 

Somewhere toward the back of his mind, a flicker of irritation sparked to life. Luther had come up with the idea. Luther knew what he wanted done. Luther could get the damn water himself. But the annoyance was dim to begin with, and died with another glance at Five dripping rainwater onto the tile. Without a word, Klaus went to the cupboard and retrieved a glass. 

Allison brushed past before the glass was completely full; and by the time he turned around, Five was reaching for a towel from the stack Allison carried. She plucked one and shook it out as though to dry him off herself; then, with a small and apologetic smile, she placed it in Five’s hands. Klaus set the glass on the table, fought again for something to say, gave up and snagged a towel instead. 

He needed another drink. 

He couldn’t carry Five up to his room or calm him with four small words. He couldn’t run a few tests and determine what had happened and what Five needed to recover, and he wasn’t the one headed off to corral the one who could chart a course for the healing process. Getting a glass from the cupboard and filling it with water was about the extent of Klaus’ contributions, and he’d done that already. No one would notice if he headed upstairs and went to town on the liquor cabinet. Allison might say something if he popped a pill or two right then and there, but she wouldn’t cause a scene. It would be expected from him. 

The longer he watched Five sip from the glass he’d poured, the more he needed to leave. The longer he watched, the less he wanted to leave. 

“Where’s Vanya?” 

That was from Luther, naturally. Klaus couldn’t say when or how he’d forgotten Vanya’s feelings toward her family, but maybe the Moon erased memories. “Where do you_ think_ she is?” 

“I don’t know, Klaus. That’s why I asked.” 

Klaus hadn’t seen her separate from their group, wasn’t sure if she’d split off before or after Allison had gone off for towels, but the relative peace in the kitchen should have been enough to let Luther know her absence was not to be questioned. “Well, if we’re lucky, maybe she’ll just stay…wherever the hell she is. Oh! You think we could camp out down here? Roast some marshmallows, sing a couple songs? _O Vanya, please stay away from us_….” 

Impromptu performances like that tended to earn flat looks and rolled eyes from most of his siblings, and threats from Vanya, but he’d hoped it might raise at least a small smile from Five. No dice. Five looked down into his glass, holding it in both hands, without so much as a hint of a smile or a chuckle. 

_Nice going_. Allison didn’t say it. She didn’t need to, with the amount of impatience and contempt she crammed into that one glance. He’d messed up, said exactly the wrong thing at just the wrong time, and there was no recovering, no going back. 

Of course, he’d known as much _before_ that look of hers. No need to drive it home with the glare of death. 

“Well, fine.” Klaus stepped forward, opening a cupboard. A canister of rolled oats was the first thing he saw, and so a canister of rolled oats was what he grabbed. “If you _wonderful_ _folks_ don’t appreciate good performance art like an audience with _sense_, I shall take my leave.” 

Giving his coat the most dramatic swish he could manage, Klaus strode out the door. 

* * *

If liquor preference was a personality trait, then Dad’s taste was one of his few redeeming qualities. 

Like most objects in the Academy, Dad’s alcohol supply was less an amassing of ingredients and more of a collection. Port and sherry shared a shelf with more varieties of red wine than Vanya cared to count, more types of white than she wanted to taste. Not that she opposed wine on principle, but the sight of so many bottles and so many shades, each promising a different flavor and composition and all the other things wine junkies raved about, brought a twinge of embarrassment when she remembered the five-gallon box she’d purchased because it was red and she’d bought white last time. 

But then, nobody could tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine anyway. She wasn’t unrefined. Just honest. 

Vanya turned from the wines and toward those promising a shorter path toward inebriation. A half-empty bottle of tequila and a nearly full bottle of mezcal sat a few inches from peppermint schnapps and two different types of rum. Closer to her sat scotches and bourbons nestled beside the whiskeys. 

Every label bore the name of a place she knew. Scotland. Jalisco. Kentucky. Each name conjured up a different image, borrowed from a different mission with a different objective and outcome. Dad had sent her and she’d gone in, done what the situation demanded of her, and left with snatches of scenery she liked and memories she didn’t. Each city had its own personality, but there came a point when they blended into each other, leaving her uncertain whether El Paso or Tucson had the hotel with a mosaic tile entrance, or if it was Paris or Amsterdam with the houses she liked. Glances through the sort of books ordinary people kept on their coffee tables cleared a few things up, but there were better things to do than relive what only Dad would call the glory days. 

Behind the Canadian whiskeys, and between those boasting an origin in Tennessee, was a single bottle announcing itself as _Wyoming Whiskey_ in no-nonsense letters. After a moment’s study, Vanya poured herself a glass. If she was going to try and erode unwanted memories old and new, a drink from a place she’d never visited seemed the best way to start. 

Footsteps approached sometime after the end of the first drink and the beginning of the second. Vanya downed the rest in a few quick swallows. If it was Diego coming to tell her off for not being there for Five, she’d need to steel herself; if it was Five himself, she’d need to clear her glass for another pour. 

Klaus rounded a corner, skirt swishing about his ankles as he came to a halt. It had been some months since she’d seen him, and then out in the open and at a distance. Perhaps that was why he seemed thinner than she remembered, collarbone protruding above his bare chest, feathered cuffs dangling over too-slender wrists. He’d tucked an open canister of rolled oats into the crook of one arm; a few oats slipped from his clenched fist and fluttered to the floor. He let out a laugh when he saw her, as though she’d made a joke. As though he were happy to see her. 

Vanya added twice the recommended amount to her glass. 

“Well, well, well.” He let his handful of oats fall back into the canister and sauntered forward—she couldn’t tell if he was staggering or not—and set the oats on the counter. “And here I thought I was the only one breaking into Dear Old Dad’s liquor cabinet.” 

Vanya sniffed. Klaus’ presence demanded she down the whole glass in one swallow, pain be damned, but she settled for a sip. “I’m not _breaking into _anything. It’s right out in the open.” 

Klaus had a way of moving like a slinky, swaying one direction only to fold himself around a corner and past whatever obstructed his path. In one stride, maybe two, he was behind the bar, hand on a bottle of bourbon. “Amazing there’s anything left.” 

“Yeah, with you around.” 

Within seconds, Klaus’ glass held more bourbon than it should have. Not quite as much as hers—but if he’d had to cope with someone like him, he’d have ditched the glass and drank straight from the bottle. “Oh, right, ‘cause_ I’m_ the one who ran up here to get drunk soon as everybody was in the house.” 

“And you were _completely_ sober when I got here.” 

There was that laugh again, the infuriating giggle that made her want to send a bottle of vodka crashing onto his head. “You really think I’m gonna do a family reunion without a little help?” He took a swallow of bourbon. “Figured_ you’d _get it.” 

Vanya’s fingers tightened on the glass. She wasn’t like him. This world he’d constructed in his head, where she was just a shadow of what _he_ was—it was a fantasy. He spent his days wandering the streets or bouncing from rehab to rehab. She worked, and the money she brought in went toward her apartment, her clothes, her food. She spent her days coaching kids through basic chords, cooking and cleaning, playing in the city’s orchestra. She wouldn’t have earned first chair if she’d devoted what remained of her life to the next fix. 

A high, sharp noise commanded her attention. Looking took only a second, but by the time she did, the glass had cracked beneath her fingers, webs of spindly lines spreading out and up. Another side effect of Klaus’ presence. 

“I think you should leave now.” 

Klaus downed half his liquor in one swallow, planting the glass firmly on the counter. A few drops came close to splashing out, but the counter remained dry. “_I_ think _you_ need another drink, if you’re just gonna get your panties in a twist over everything.” 

He was needling her, poking her skin over and over until he found what caused the most pain. For what, she couldn't say. Perhaps he was so enamored with Five’s return that he simply could not comprehend why she hadn’t followed to the kitchen to wait on him. Perhaps he was still angry over her last refusal to let him crash at her place. That had been years ago, but Klaus was just the sort to hold a grudge for that long. 

She could lash back, with words or force. A few sharp retorts already came to mind, but they might not land the way they should. Klaus’ quest to rid himself of powers Dad had never thought to take from him had apparently robbed him of his faculties, if his incessant giggling was any indication, and there was little point in an insult that slid off like water from a tarp. The Academy had never been a noisy place, but what few sounds there were—air rushing through the vents, the creaking of old boards—already tempted her. 

And Klaus remained, with no trace of fear. 

“I’ve had kind of a rough day,” she said, setting the cracked glass in the sink slowly and deliberately, so as not to throw it the way she longed to. 

Klaus’s mouth formed a round O of mock surprise and he clapped his hands to his cheeks. “Me too! Weird, huh? Us both having the worst day ever at the same time?” 

Vanya clenched her teeth. He was like the cockroaches at a place she’d lived, one of the few complexes she was grateful to be blacklisted from. Lay out traps and they’d skirt around them. Stomp on them and they’d avoid your boot. Spray them with Raid and they’d roll onto their backs long enough, only long enough, to make you think you’d won. Long enough to make their swift return all the more infuriating. “I don’t want to break anything worse than a glass, is all I’m saying.” 

“Why? Afraid the cops might come? Afraid they might send you to—” He put a hand to his mouth, covering a gasp too melodramatic to be genuine, and looked to left and right before continuing in a stage whisper. “_Therapy_?” 

Vanya felt the cracks in her discarded glass spread and splinter before she ever heard it. She wanted to let it shatter—no, she wanted to_ make _it shatter, send a hundred jagged shards exploding out from the sink to embed themselves in the wall, the counter, Klaus’ skin; to strike other bottles like bullets and send their contents cascading. 

“You don’t understand.” 

“No! I mean, Sitting on a comfy couch for a whole _hour_ while some lady in an ugly-ass pantsuit listens to your problems?” He shook his head in mock amazement, adding more bourbon to his glass. “It’s a miracle we’re at _Dad’s _funeral. You should’ve just—” 

He blew a raspberry, pointing his thumb to the floor. 

Another crack spread through the glass, and another. He didn’t see. Didn’t know the humiliation of walking into that office, week after week. Couldn’t comprehend the misery of hearing mistakes inflated and exaggerated, balled up and thrown back in her face whenever she tried to explain herself. He couldn’t know the recurring sting of walking past her favorite coffee shop—a place that had once pulled her into an embrace of scents both earthy and sweet—knowing that the police would be called if she so much as crossed the street to reminisce from the wrong side of the window. If anyone under the Academy roof spared an ounce of sympathy for her, it should have been him. He, at least, knew what it was to have his faults paraded before police and judges and dismissed with no regard for what it was to be in his shoes. 

She should have known that was too much to ask of him. 

The glass was all but destroyed now; there was little point in leaving it whole. The sink would absorb most of the damage, and while a few shards would fly out, Klaus had learned to dodge. He knew what he faced if he failed to. He couldn’t call the police without risking his own skin. 

Yet a part of her, a small part of her, whispered that he just might be insane enough to try. 

The canister flew across the room to smack against a formation of bottles, knocking them over with a crash. Liquor spilled over the counter and onto the floor, sweeping up oats in the flow. Vanya turned on her heel, not giving Klaus the satisfaction of one last grin. 

* * *

“That could’ve gone better.” 

“Yeah, you think?” Klaus downed the rest of his bourbon and regarded the bottles still standing. The accidental cocktail Vanya had created with her little tantrum wouldn’t be tasty—especially not with oats floating in it and faint remnants of floor cleaner offering a different kind of intoxication—but all of those liquors together would get him drunk faster than anything he could mix on his own. 

Well. Drunk_er_. 

Klaus didn’t sway as he straightened and headed for the tequila. He wasn’t quite to that point, though he sensed its approach. 

“Seriously?” 

“Hey, _you_ try dealing with Vanya sober.” He opened the bottle, raising his voice in a mocking imitation of Vanya’s. “_Oh, look at me, I wreck some coffee shop and have to _not _go to prison, everyone needs to be sad for me._” 

“Oh, you mean like my entire life? _And_ afterlife, so far?” 

“So far?” Klaus grinned, raising both eyebrows. “What are you not telling me, Ben?” 

Ben rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.” 

“No, I don’t.” He poured a shot of tequila and tossed it down. “If there’s drunkenness after death, you really need to tell me. This could change _everything_.” 

“You really think I’d tell _you_ something like that?” 

“Some brothe_r _you are.” 

“Said the guy who left Five to come get shitfaced.” 

The sting was sharp, as if Ben had slapped him across the cheek. Klaus poured another shot and downed it without breaking eye contact, but when he set the glass down he had to look away. He tried for some remark glib enough to set Ben on a different course, but nothing came to mind in time. 

“Bet you can still catch up with him.” 

It wasn’t the first time the thought had occurred to Klaus, but he hadn’t allowed it to take root in his mind with this level of clarity. Go back to the kitchen, or track Five to wherever the others had brought him. Apologize for whatever it was he’d said wrong—more than one thing, probably, though he could only think of the one. See if Five wanted to go flip off Dad’s urn for a while. Let Five watch him stagger down the stairs, sway in the door, smell the alcohol on his breath. The others, Diego and Luther and Allison—they might not _understand,_ but they expected it. They’d seen it before. 

A part of him whispered that Five would see it sooner or later, that maybe he’d already extrapolated from those moments he’d caught Klaus at the bar when they were kids, those times he’d given Klaus the cover he needed to sneak out for his next fix. It didn’t matter, or wouldn’t matter. Sobriety was little more than a punchline around him, and it was only a matter of time before Five saw the joke. 

He straightened, swallowed the last of the tequila in his glass, fished for a cigarette in his pocket and lit it. He took a long drag, closing his eyes as he exhaled. It wasn’t’ the first time he’d smoked in the Academy, not by far, but usually Dad or Pogo would come barreling around the corner seconds after his lighter clicked on. This time, there was only silence. Blissful, smoke-filled silence. He leaned against the island, allowing each breath to carry off more of Vanya’s lingering presence.

He wasn’t sure how long it was before the edge of the counter began digging into his back, before the floor began to press against his feet through the thin soles of his shoes, before the weight of the items in his coat reminded him of where he could be and what he could be getting. A pang of guilt accompanied the last thought, regardless of the facts. He wasn’t needed at the Academy. He’d probably sent Five into a tailspin with whatever it was he’d said. The memorial service seemed to have been forgotten for the time being; even if he were missing when it began, his absence wouldn’t be lamented or questioned too heavily. The more he considered it, the more he itched for what those items would buy him. 

He’d be leaving Five again. Leaving him not in the kitchen, but there in the Academy while he was off elsewhere in the city; but Five wouldn’t be _alone_. Might not even notice he was gone. 

“Klaus?” 

Five’s voice was too soft, too uncertain, but it still gave Klaus a start and he nearly dropped his cigarette. 

“Christ on a cracker,” he breathed, glancing down at the floor. Still a safe enough distance from the spilled alcohol that a lit cigarette wouldn’t send a puddle of flame racing up the cabinets, but closer than he would have liked. He sucked in a breath and turned to Five, plastering on a smile. “What’re you doing up here?” 

Five didn’t answer. He’d changed into his pajamas—which were drier than what he’d been wearing, and in better shape, but Klaus could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen any of his siblings wearing pajamas in the middle of the day. In each instance, they’d been sick enough to get out of training, sick enough to remain in their rooms instead of joining the rest of the family for silent meals and Dad’s stupid recordings. Five was still walking on his own two feet, his skin lacking the pallor it had held on those days; but Klaus didn’t recall him being so thin when he’d left. 

How long had he stood just out of sight? 

“Dad’s not here, is he.” 

There were two answers: the tactful one, and the direct one. The tactful one was more up Allison’s alley, requiring more gentle words and roundabout phrasings than Klaus had in his arsenal. It was probably more akin to what Five needed, closer to what he’d like to hear, but Klaus had already stalled long enough. 

“Died a little over a week ago.” 

Five nodded slowly. If there was any surprise in his expression, Klaus couldn’t see it. “He…he probably would’ve walked out when I showed up, huh?” 

_And done a lot more than that,_ Klaus thought, but didn’t say as much. Five had to have known he’d have been hauled off to one of those rooms everyone hated, held there until he’d divulged every secret he’d brought back with him, had Dad occupied the Academy. “We can go flip off his urn for a while, if you want.” 

Five didn’t smile, or even meet Klaus’ gaze. He’d said the wrong thing again. Made a joke when Five needed something else, something Allison or Luther or even Diego would be better suited to offer. Something Klaus couldn’t muster, not even when it was needed. Especially not when it was needed. 

“Where’s Ben?” 

If Ben’s remark had been a slap, Five’s question was like a punch to the gut. He had to say something, anything, but the words wouldn’t form and he couldn’t muster even an _I don’t know_ or a _Why do you ask?_ He could only struggle, through the fog and the emotions that one question dredged up, to say anything at all. 

Five dropped his gaze, biting his lip. He didn’t sink to the floor or look for a place to sit down. He didn’t let out a cry or suck in a breath. Klaus watched him crumple all the same. 

“Hey, it—” He started forward, barely remembering to put out his cigarette before Five fell into his arms. 

Maybe he should have expected it. Over a decade stood between him and Ben’s death. No one would say he’d used them well, and if pressed he wouldn’t disagree; but he’d still had them. Ten years to let the dust settle and the blood dry. Ten years to accept that Ben’s clothes no longer occupied the closet, that no one would set a place for him whenever they were allowed back into the Academy. Ten years of hearing his voice, watching him roll his eyes and try in vain to block Klaus’ access to his stash, of being the only one to know he would never really go away. For all Five knew, there’d been no reason not to expect Ben’s face among those who greeted him upon his return. 

He still found himself returning the hug awkwardly, too awkwardly, running a hand along Five’s back. Tears shook his bony frame, and Klaus wanted to kick himself for not calling in Allison to answer. “It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.” 

“How?” 

Ben no longer leaned against the bar. He had a way of doing that, stepping around while your back was turned to show up in the last place you wanted to see him. This time, though, Klaus didn’t mind the sight of him, the look he got—or the clear instructions it carried. 

“I mean, it’s not like he’s _gone_.” 

Five pulled away, and the hope in his eyes made Klaus want to shrivel up and disappear. 

Ben smiled a bit, raising a hand in greeting. “Hey, Five.” 

“He says hi.” 

* * *

Vanya should have brought the whiskey along.

Her anger hadn’t quite burned away when she reached the top of the stairs, but it had calmed enough for her thoughts to turn to things other than Klaus’ exaggerated smiles and mocking words; and they turned to that bottle on the counter. She should have grabbed it before storming off—or if not that bottle specifically, then another close to it. Something strong, something she could keep all to herself. Something that would get her to the memorial service in one piece.

If her siblings still planned on holding a service. 

She found her old bedroom less by intent and more by muscle memory, and it hadn’t changed much from the day she’d left. The furniture was gone, shuttled off to her first apartment and then the next; as were her clothes, which had been added to over the years. It would have been an empty room, devoid of the personality she’d lent it, but there were small signs, little memories here and there. A length of blue ribbon she’d once worn to a press briefing snaked across the floor. The green hair tie she’d thought had been lost in the move lay in one corner, grey with dust. Along the wall adjacent to her window Vanya could just make out little patches where the drywall was ever so slightly uneven, marking the places where, in retaliation for being sent to her room, she’d driven holes into her wall to spell out an obscene message. Dad had barged in before she’d finished the first word. 

She ran a hand along the windowsill, catching dust on her fingertips. It wasn’t surprising that Dad’s memorial service had stalled—in the back of her mind, she’d expected Diego or Klaus to delay it somehow, though she hadn’t written off Allison as a potential culprit—but she hadn’t thought it would stall indefinitely. Yet here she was, waiting for her siblings to stop doting on Five long enough to put their dead father to rest. 

Vanya looked to the wall again. For a moment she considered finishing the word, leaving it as a parting gift for whenever she was allowed to walk out of the Academy without Dad’s unread will hanging over her head. But then, it would’ve been just like Dad to turn something about _willful destruction of childhood bedroom_ into a condition. 

She closed the door behind her and stepped into the hall, seeing no one, but Five’s room stood open. Maybe someone had been there in minutes past; maybe Mom had left it open for whatever reason. Vanya couldn’t say and couldn’t bring herself to care. He’d be moving back into it soon—but then, once the memorial service was over and done with, she’d be back in her own apartment, away from that room and its occupant. 

A short walk took her back down to the entryway and then the common room, but that wasn’t where the voices led her. One she recognized as Klaus, the other as Five—but the cheer in Klaus’ voice seemed more genuine now, the simmering resentment she’d caught now missing. 

“So I’m just there in my book fort, minding my own business, and the librarian walks over and she’s all ‘Sir, you need to put these on a cart.’ And I’m all ‘Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to just build a new one instead of putting this whole thing on a cart?’” 

“Maybe she just wanted you to put the books away?” 

“That’s what Ben said, but I dunno. That fort was _awesome_.” 

_Ben._ Her breath caught. Asking her to name a favorite sibling was like asking her to name a favorite toothache, but some toothaches hurt less than others. Some could be almost pleasant, when they wanted to be. 

And some left a different sort of pain when they went away. 

“What books did you use?” 

“What books did I—Five. I built a _fort_. Out of _books_. Had turrets, a moat and everything. That’s all you need to know.” 

Rather than pressing Klaus for more details, Five turned his gaze to the armchair. “What’d he use, Ben? You remember?” 

Klaus rolled his eyes and began listing off titles, but Vanya barely heard them past the pounding of her own heart. Ben wasn’t there—or at least, he wasn’t where Klaus could see him, and that was by design. The ghosts he alone could see, the ghosts he alone could command, were evidently far more frightening than the poisons he forced into his system and the people and laws he trampled to get them. The substances he favored were still there. His powers were gone—and here he was, playing the medium. Speaking for the dead when the dead no longer spoke to him. Using Ben as a prop to tell an asinine story about_ himself_. 

“Don’t.” 

Allison’s voice was soft, but Vanya stopped in her tracks. Her sister sat on the stairs, just out of the light cast from the sitting room. 

“Are you_ hearing_ this?” 

Allison bowed her head for a few seconds. When she raised it, there was sorrow in her eyes—but also a glint of steel Vanya had rarely seen outside of particularly nasty missions. 

“Don’t take this from him.” 

“Take _what_? A lie?” 

Allison stood, mouth tight. She took a few steps forward, but didn’t come close to bridging the gap between them. 

“I don’t care what it is.” Her voice had grown softer, scarcely rising above a whisper, but no less stern for it. “You’re going to let him have this.” 

A stab of fear went through her. Allison hadn’t referenced those four words, but the threat was there, carried on a tone addressing her as a child. “Or _what_?” 

She didn’t answer, but the glare she leveled on her way into the common room was enough. 


	4. No Other Superstar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title is from Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi."

Leonard had never been overly fond of coffee.

He drank it when it was in front of him, drained the mug and didn’t complain. To call it a show of strength would be overstating the issue—were that the case, his fellow inmates would have hosted more coffee-drinking contests than brawls, and Leonard could have risen to the top simply by forcing more and more of the stuff down his throat. No, there was something else to the ritual, something less dire yet more crucial. Drinking coffee, drinking it hot and bitter with no sugar or milk to make the experience somewhat pleasant, wasn’t proof of one’s strength, but denial of one’s weakness.

The thought brought a smile as he watched Vanya shake cocoa powder over a pile of whipped cream.

“What?” 

“Nothing.” He allowed his smile to remain. “Just the way you take your coffee, is all.” 

The whipped cream, a perfectly formed swirl of white, was nearly covered in a layer of soft brown, like the last patches of snow clinging to a mound of dirt. “Sugar and coffee with more sugar on top. If you’ve got a better way to toast my dad, let’s hear it.”

Leonard covered a flash of irritation with a chuckle. He’d learned a lot about Sir Reginald Hargreeves from the man’s daughter. For their first few dates, he’d taken her into or past various coffee shops around town, hoping to jog her memory of the incident that had, by some miraculous failure of the justice system, _not _landed her in prison. He’d expected a monologue about her restraining order or the woes of anger management; instead, he’d been treated to long lectures on Sir Reginald Hargreeves’ views of sweets and caffeinated beverages. Coffee. Coffee with sugar, coffee with creamer, coffee with nothing. Tea with milk added. Tea with dried fruit mixed in. Tea from the furthest reaches of the globe, tea from the local supermarket. He approved of none and had once spent thirty minutes tearing into the poor courier who mistakenly left a canister of ground coffee on the back step with the rest of the groceries. Harold Jenkins would have snatched up Reginald’s hardline stance on decaf and stowed it away in his collection of Umbrella Academy trivia. Leonard Peabody had been left with no choice but to smile and nod and wait for her to whine about something he could put to use.

Vanya could have launched into another diatribe, but instead she lifted her mug and sipped, leaving a dollop of whipped cream on her nose. On another girl, Leonard might have found it cute. “You’ve got a…”

“Oh!” She fumbled for a napkin, then wiped it away. “Thanks.” 

“How was the service?” 

“You mean the one we postponed?” 

Leonard’s spirits gave a small leap. “Aw, you’re kidding!”

“Nope.” She sighed. “_Apparently_, when some brother comes back, you suddenly can’t have a funeral anymore.” 

“Brother…which brother? The druggie?” 

“No, Klaus was there already. I mean, he _was_ in rehab, but he wasn’t the one who came back.” 

Leonard filed that bit of information away, though he didn’t spy an immediate use for it. “The Moon guy?”

She shook her head over another sip of coffee, one that left no trace of whipped cream behind. “That’s Luther. Five’s the one who came back.”

“Five.” The boy had been given a name at some point, but the papers and magazines and comics had never introduced him as anything other than Number Five. For a time, Leonard had tried to work up the courage to ask his classmates to call him Number Eight, but that desire was long since dead. “Didn’t he leave when you were—what? Thirteen?” 

“Yep. Just ran out the door and never came back.” The bitterness that worked its way into her tone was slow, growing slightly with each word. “Well. Until yesterday.” 

“Damn. Must’ve been weird seeing him.” 

“_That’s_ an understatement.” 

“He try to shred your mask again?”

He said it with a smile, but Vanya’s expression darkened—whether at the memory itself or her brother's return, he couldn't be certain. “Nah. Just moped around the house until I left.”

Leonard tried to reconcile that image with the prankster he’d once admired, the one whose smile always hinted at an amusing secret. The two meshed about as well as oil and water. “What’s he got to be sad about? Came home, didn’t he?” 

“I know, right?” Vanya took a bite of her bagel. Leonard had stood by as she followed the barista around the counter, watching her slice it and place it in a toaster oven and then a bag. The barista had managed to complete the task without error, despite her frequent glances toward the phone and its promise of a speedy response from the police. “He pops back in after sixteen years and he’s all anybody can think about.” 

“That’s weird.” If Vanya didn’t intend to explain Five’s drastic change in personality, it would be pointless to ask. “I mean, it seems like they’d want to get your dad’s funeral over with.” 

“God, you’re not kidding. I told ‘em we should just have it then, and Allison’s all ‘_Oh, well, we really should wait, Five’s upset and we’ve got to wait for him to get better._’” She rolled her eyes, letting the bagel fall to her plate. “Come _on_. How long does it take to go outside and dump some ashes on the ground?”

“I dunno. _The_ Sir Reginald Hargreeves, dead?” Leonard nearly added_ at last _and caught himself just in time. “Maybe they want to be in the right frame of mind.” 

“_What_ frame of mind? High? That’s what Klaus’ll be. Everyone else’ll just be bored.” She lifted her bagel again and talked around her next bite. “Don’t know why they keep dragging it out.” 

“Nobody wants to be there, huh?” 

“Nope.” 

“So why’re they staying? Couldn’t you all just say nope, no funeral for you and move on?” 

Vanya sighed again. “I guess there’s something in his will about how he needs a _real _funeral with all his kids there. Can’t leave until we get the service over with, but you know. Nobody in my family knows how to do things the easy way.”

“Or the smart way.” From the way Vanya spoke, he’d figured a family reunion would be about as welcome as a family case of scabies, and the sooner they could all leave the Academy and return to their lives, the better. That probably still held true, but if the five of them—six now—were legally obligated to carry out a memorial service which they’d chosen to postpone, then it bought Leonard some time, though he couldn’t say how much. 

She sniffed. “You think my family’s ever done _anything_ the smart way?”

* * *

Number Five. An odd name, but not the oddest Hazel had found waiting for him in a Commission file. 

Much of it followed standard Commission format: a photograph, a location, a handful of scattered facts. Sometimes the latter came in handy, sometimes they didn’t. Learning that Zoya Popova had a bit of a sweet tooth hadn’t aided in her death, though the tidbit stuck with Hazel long after her body had cooled. 

It was the photograph, in this case, that held his attention. Dark hair, dirty and dulled. Pale skin clinging to cheekbones more prominent than they ought to be. Whoever had snapped the photo had cropped out his surroundings, leaving only his face, dominated by wide dark eyes averted from a camera they hadn’t seen. Most targets didn’t smile in their file photos, and Number Five was no exception. 

“What’re _you_ looking at?” 

Fifty or sixty jobs ago, Hazel might have told her he was studying the target, seeking out any additional information that might help them carry out the job as quickly and cleanly as possible. Staring down yet another night on a mattress that should’ve been thrown out five years back with the smell of cat piss in his nostrils, Hazel couldn’t muster up a single reason to lie. 

“Target. Number Five. How old d’you think he is?” 

“I dunno. Twelve. Fifteen, maybe.” Cha-Cha opened the closet door, peered into the shallow space, and moved on to the restroom. “Should be easier than the last guy.” 

That was Hazel’s cue to offer a few words of agreement, maybe crack a joke before letting the matter drop; but Cha-Cha had nudged aside the curtain now. She might as well have grabbed a handful of his hair and given one good yank, for all the good that rustle did his aching head. “What the hell are you doing?” 

“I’m making sure we have enough space to do what we’ve gotta.” 

Hazel let himself fall onto the nearest bed, the creak masking his sigh. “Run in, shoot the kid, run out. You really think we need another plan?” 

“If this one goes the way that job in Guadalajara did, yeah.” She closed the bathroom door behind her and moved past him to check the front window. “Should’ve had a backup plan for that one.” 

“Still did it on time.” 

“Doesn’t mean we did it well.” She pressed herself against the wall, leaning back to inspect the window without opening the curtains. “You heard what the Handler said.” 

He’d heard. And heard, and heard. The Commission was lucky they had all the time in the world at their command, considering their managers spent so much of it lecturing agents for perceived failures and slights. “Long as we get it done.” 

“You know that’s not how it works, asshole.” 

Hazel sighed. Working for the Commission wasn’t like delivering the mail or washing dishes in the backroom. Completing the task on schedule was never enough—no, they wanted flair. Nothing too noticeable, nothing that might be traced back to them, but speed alone wasn’t enough. Professionalism. Style. A body that left few clues for the authorities and enough questions to keep the case in their minds long after it had gone cold. One of those things on its own might earn a nod of approval; it took all three of them together to gain the Handler’s praise. 

Her inspection concluded, Cha-Cha turned from the window, but her foot snagged on the briefcase, sending her stumbling across the floor, nearly falling onto Hazel’s bed. 

“_Shit!_” Cha-Cha caught herself, arms braced against the bed, and pushed her way to her feet. “Why the _hell’d_ you leave that thing on the floor? You know we’re supposed to carry it!” 

“I was sitting down! You expect me to carry it while I’m sitting here?” 

“I_ expect _you to not leave it in the middle of the goddamn floor!” 

“Well, maybe you wouldn’t have tripped over it if you’d watched where you were—” 

“It’s not_ about_ me tripping, it’s about you leaving the goddamn _briefcase _out where anybody can grab it!” 

“Oh, like we’ll have the whole city walkin’ on through while we’re here.” 

“Just put it somewhere safe, will you?” 

Hazel could have tugged it closer to his bed, shoved it as far under as the boards would allow. That was the response she expected, the one she wanted. It would have been easier, ended the whole exchange on a somewhat peaceful note and made it less eligible to become the topic of a later argument. 

In one swift motion, he was on his feet. A few steps took him to a large grate set into the wall, and a few twists of the screwdriver attachment in his pocketknife had the screws in his hand and then on the table. 

“Oh, no. You are _not_ putting it in there.” 

“You told me to put it somewhere safe.” He hefted the briefcase into the mouth of the shaft with a clanking _thud_. “And there it is. Somewhere safe.” 

“The Handbook says we’ve gotta carry it _at all times_.” 

“Well, then _you_ carry it.” 

He watched her, grate in his hands. After a moment, she scoffed, rolled her eyes, and turned away. 

“Well, all right, then.” 

Hazel put the grate back in place, reached for the screws, and realized it would be more prudent to leave the grate unattached to the wall. Of all the things to land him in hot water with the Commission, not being able to reach the briefcase in time because he’d sealed it inside the wall seemed like one of the dumbest. 

When he got to his feet, she was now the one with the file open. Number Five’s photograph sat off to one side, the left edge of his face obscured by her thumb as she read what scant details the Commission had provided. “Any idea where to start with this kid?” 

“Should probably find him first.” 

“Thanks, dumbass. Couldn’t have guessed _that_.” 

“You asked.” 

Cha-Cha tapped a forefinger against the page. “Says his name’s Number Five. Can’t be_ that _many kids in one city named after numbers.” 

“Probably not the only kid here with a shitty name.” 

She dropped her arm and the file with it. “Now why the hell would you think that?” 

“Oh, come on. With our luck, they probably sent us to the one city where every kid’s got some bullshit name. If there’s a kid named Number Five, there’s gotta be one named Gas Station Bathroom or That Year I Washed Dishes With a Man Named Hank.” 

“Well, if _that’s_ what we’re dealing with, then we should still be able to ask around and find a kid named Number Five.” 

That tone, so purposefully even and intentionally calm, set Hazel on edge. He’d agreed to travel with a partner, not a parent. He’d agreed to work alongside her, not submit to extended lectures and constant condescension. “You know it’s not gonna be that easy.” 

“Doesn’t matter if it’s easy or not.” She hefted their package onto the bed. “As long as it gets done.” 

* * *

Vanya didn’t discuss her family when she played the violin.

After their months together, in whatever one might call their semblance of a relationship, Leonard still hadn’t decided how he felt about that. No talking meant no endless litany of woes caused by a family she hadn’t seen in years or a court system that had decided a slap on the wrist was too harsh for what she’d done. It also meant a halt to tidbits about that family, snippets of information Leonard could commit to memory and scribble down later. There was a silver lining to every cloud, as he’d heard, but in this case he couldn't be sure which was which.

The comics had gotten her power wrong. Those writers, those artists—they’d understood her capabilities. They’d known how easily she could bend sound to her will, how she could magnify footsteps and rustling newspapers into a force ready to smash an entire wall to bits or toss robbers and kidnappers about like dishrags. All of those things had made it onto the page, though absent the blood and screams Vanya mentioned as matter-of-factly as she mentioned the time of day. 

Her violin changed things.

It didn’t rob her powers of their destructive potential. He knew as much long before the first strains of Tchaikovsky sent the curtains dancing as though in a gale and set her lampshade swaying back and forth, before the force of it hit him like a drumbeat blared through speakers placed too close. And it would be a mistake to say she had less control without her music. He’d seen and heard enough to know otherwise.

But there was a distinction. Without her violin, her power was a hurricane barreling down the coast, ripping trees up by their roots and tearing homes to pieces before tossing them aside. When she played, it was like an army marching in columns, guns at the ready and every step synchronized. Both were under her command, yet the difference between them was the difference between a man with a pistol demanding money in a back alley, and a man in a tuxedo demanding compliance from behind a revolver. After six months, Leonard still couldn’t say which he preferred her family surrender to. 

The final notes faded; the ripples through her apartment quieted. Vanya gave a small bow as Leonard clapped. 

“Was that okay? I felt like the middle was a little shaky.”

“No, it was great.” The sheer level of power she packed into a simple string of notes was enough to give him chills. Were that power intentional—had she infused the music with the full brunt of her fury—she could have easily brought the complex crashing down around their ears. 

She set her violin and bow in their case before returning to the sheet music, frowning over pages filled with notes she herself had arranged. “Something’s just not working there. Not sure what it is.”

Both her playing and composing held flaws, but Leonard knew so only from her habit of calling attention to them. Had he spent his teen years learning violin under the watch of Sir Reginald Hargreeves rather than waiting to be shuffled from juvenile hall to prison, he might have been able to spot them more readily than she did, point them out before she realized what she’d done, show her precisely which holes they created in the overall quality of her piece and tug at those holes until the whole production lay in shreds at her feet.

Instead, he kissed her cheek. She’d tensed at his first attempt months prior, but an apology, a frank discussion, and a pointed avoidance of similar acts for weeks afterward, had kept her from slamming the door in his face. Now, she relaxed at the touch. “It sounds fine to me.”

Her smile was genuine, soft and grateful. Almost charming. “Glad you like it. I’m still kinda new to this whole composing thing.”

It wasn’t enough that she could play music—oh no, she had to compose it too. Even with his limited knowledge, he could tell her efforts were nowhere near as complex as those of the composers she admired, but they sounded _good_. Pleasant. Had he not known the composer to be one of the Hargreeves, he could have enjoyed it. Here she was, writing her own music and playing the greats onstage, while he refurbished antiques for doddering old women and young people who thought themselves the first human beings in history to discover treasures in the past.

“Ever, uh….” The words were clear in his mind, the question more of a demand than anything; but he’d learned that the more uncertain his tone, the longer he hesitated before questions, the more it put her at ease. “Ever think of playing that for your family?” 

“You’re kidding, right?” She stacked the pages together and slid them back into a folder, then stepped out of his grip as she snapped her violin case closed. “You know how many concerts of mine they’ve been to? None. Not a single one.”

It was amazing, he thought, how quickly bitterness could replace the uncertainty in her tone, take her smile and turn it into a scowl. Not every mention of her family did that, but those that did needed to be remembered, placed together and compared until commonalities emerged. “Aw, come on. I’m sure they’d listen to _that_.”

“Maybe if you tied ‘em up first.” 

Leonard had considered the notion back when his plan was still an idea, when his dates with Vanya were still awkward and suffused with the sort of tension one might expect from international negotiations; but it had never progressed beyond that. A plan that took out Klaus and perhaps Diego before running afoul of Allison and Luther was no better than a plan that had him walk into the Academy unarmed and announce his intent to see none of them leave alive. “I’m sure it’d go better than you think.”

Her expression, never to be mistaken for one of joy and harmony, darkened even further. “Not with Five there.” 

“He doesn’t like violin?” 

“He doesn’t like _me _playing violin. I tell you he replaced all the strings once?”

“No.” 

“Yeah. Changed ‘em out for yarn _right_ before Dad wanted to hear me play.”

Her jaw clenched. “Took me forever to find the strings.” 

“Couldn’t your dad just buy you some new ones?” 

“That’d make the most sense, wouldn’t it?” 

She didn’t elaborate further, and Leonard knew better than to wait for more of the story. It could be difficult to predict when she’d launch into a longer tale and when the line or two she gave him was the story itself, but he preferred the option that didn’t compel him to listen and offer sympathy for minutes at a stretch. 

Vanya took her own composition back to where she kept sheet music for the orchestra separate from sheet music for her lessons. While her back was turned, Leonard cast a few quick glances about her apartment in search of some tool to turn the conversation back toward her family. As far as he could tell, she’d brought nothing back from the Academy, and kept nothing at hand to remind her of the eventual service in her father’s honor.

She glanced at the clock. “I’ve still got a while before I need to head to my next lesson. Want to walk around downtown for a while?”

Leonard would have sooner returned to prison, but she wanted to spend time with him. That was what mattered. He’d learned what she wanted, paid a little above asking price, and begun his investment. The more loyalty he gave her, the more kisses and hand-holding and rants about the unfairness of a world that bowed to her power he endured, the more trust she would reward him with.

He smiled. “Sounds great.”

* * *

Noon came and went. Hazel’s first year as a field agent had taught him not to expect meals at regular hours or intervals, that the job came first and his needs came second, if they placed at all. Combined with the jet lag he only managed to shake on jobs that lasted longer than they should have and the confusion that came with jumping from to day to night and back again, and Hazel had learned that _mealtime_ was whenever he could set aside a few minutes to wolf down a bite. 

Even so, he was hungry by noon, so that seemed as good a time as any to start the usual argument. 

“Now? We’re _this close_ to finding that kid.” 

“No we’re not.” 

“We’ve just gotta look a little longer.” 

“Look for _what_? It’s the middle of a school day. Even if we find out where he’s going, we’re not gonna get him. Should just wait until school lets out.” 

“If the Handler’d wanted us to do that, she’d have dropped us off right in the afternoon.” 

Hazel watched a red sports car pull slowly into the parking lot of a burger joint, then join a line of cars at the drive-thru. Sitting the way he did, elbow propped up near the window with his chin in his hand as though they were on a sightseeing venture and not a business trip, never failed to annoy his partner, but he couldn’t find it in him to care. “Just more shitty planning on her part.” 

“Shitty—” Only the motion of the car, it seemed, kept Cha-Cha from whirling in her seat. “They monitor_ time,_ Hazel. They know what they’re doing when they send somebody out first thing in the morning.” 

“Yeah. Right when they can’t even nab the kid they’re going after.” He shifted a little, trying in vain to relieve some of the pressure on his back. “God. Hate chasing down kids.” 

“How would you know? Number Five’s the first main target who’s not old enough for a driver’s license.” 

“Yeah, well, I hate it already.” 

Rather than launch into another lecture, Cha-Cha sighed, her shoulders sagging a little. “Yeah, me too. Been a bitch to find him.” 

That wasn't the reason Hazel would have chosen, but he didn’t offer one of his own. “You’d think they’d give us a little more information.” 

“They’re doing the best they can.” 

She had no proof they were, and Hazel had no proof they weren’t. As management styles went, the Handler’s was about as transparent as a soot-covered brick wall. She gave orders, and those orders were followed. Explanations were for those higher up the food chain. Questions were for those in charge. If Hazel broke into headquarters and found extensive profiles of past targets complete with facts that could have ended a job in minutes rather than hours, he wouldn’t even blink. 

He said nothing as Cha-Cha eased the car into a drive-thru. He tried to prepare himself for another greasy burger and limp fries, but his mind drifted toward a real, sit-down meal in an actual restaurant with table linens and napkins, a plate of manicotti that wasn’t warmed in a microwave beside a basket of garlic bread and a salad with housemade dressing and fresh croutons….

“Hey. _Asshole_.” 

Cha-Cha’s hand against his shoulder shook his thoughts away. Cool spring air floated through her open window; behind her sat a speaker and a menu. Faded letters on a backlit piece of yellowing plastic spelled out the names of simple meals. This place must have had the shortest wait, and it didn’t take a genius to guess why. 

“Just…uh…” The restaurant didn’t offer burgers, as he’d expected, but sandwiches. A nice tuna sub from a place like this would probably leave him flat on his back in the motel room, but the threat of hospitalization was enough to set him on a different course. The Commission didn’t take kindly to agents who brought their identities to the brink of discovery. “Roast beef is fine. Provolone cheese.” 

She repeated his order to the speaker, then pulled forward. Hazel half-expected her to snap at him, to remind him to get his head in the game because this job needed the both of them, but she kept her gaze forward. One forefinger tapped the steering wheel. 

“Number Five.” He couldn’t tell if she said to him or only herself. “Who the hell names their kid Number Five?” 

“Maybe they only wanted one kid and didn’t bother naming the rest.” 

“Why not just give ‘em all names that start with the same letter or something?” She passed a few bills to the cashier, took the change, and drummed her finger again. “There’s gotta be something else. Commission always gives us a couple clues, right?” 

He scoffed. “You call those _clues_?” 

“Well, they help.” 

“Since _when_?” 

“Beijing, 1411?” She didn’t give Hazel a chance to call that the fluke it had been. “That name. Number Five. Name that weird’s gotta be a clue.” 

“You didn’t say that when we went after Polly Esther Slack.” 

“We found her in—what? Two hours? Don’t need a real big clue for a girl who spends every Wednesday night and Sunday morning in the same damn place.”

“Well, far as we know, Number Five’s not spending his time anywhere.” 

“He’s somewhere, and somebody’s seen him.” 

She was right, but Hazel wasn’t about to admit as much. Not aloud. “So what’re we missing here?” 

She accepted the bag from the window and handed it off. Hazel took his sandwich and handed Cha-Cha hers. 

“I dunno,” she said. “But we’re missing something.” 

Hazel unwrapped his sandwich. Pale bread, suspiciously cold toward the center. Bits of dry beef stuck out from all sides, and a flash of yellow fought to tear his attention from the wilted lettuce. Part of him wanted to swear. Part of him wanted to demand they return to that godawful place and demand a redo. 

The rest of him lacked the energy for a fight with no chance of victory. 

He took a bite. The bread, at least, had been thawed enough for that, but not enough to conceal its origins. That was what held most of his attention—but it distracted him from the dry beef and processed cheese, so he followed that bite with another, and another. Cha-Cha didn’t touch her food. She drove in silence, pausing at stop signs but otherwise not deviating from whatever course the road set. 

In an instant, his sandwich was nearly pitched out of his hands as Cha-Cha slammed on the brakes. 

“Cha!” His hand snagged the grab handle and he clung to it. “What the hell—” 

She executed the fastest three-point turn he’d ever seen, one that left him glancing all around in search of police lights. None appeared. 

“We’re going downtown,” she said, as if that explained everything. “I know how to find this kid.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life hack: If you hate your job so much that you contemplate giving yourself food poisoning to get out of it, then it's…. probably time to find a new job.


End file.
